Heretofore, one of the basic problems with certain types of photoconductive materials such as a zinc oxide belt, was that after sections of the belt were exposed to light to form an image thereon, the material would require a certain amount of time in darkness to recover its photoconductive properties. This phenomenon is generally known in the art as allowing the photoconductor to "dark adapt". The relative time required for this recovery is comparatively long with respect to the speed of the copier system. Therefore, it is necessary to have a long expanse of photoconductive material (many sections), which is cycled through the system. Thus, segmented amounts of the web are serially charged exposed, toned, cleaned, and then serially returned as spent material to a storage area for recovery purposes. While the spent material is allowed to "dark adapt", fresh image receiving segments of photoconductive material are supplied to the copier system to make subsequent copies of original documents. Each segment receives a full document image, and may be made equal to or slightly larger than the document size.
In copier systems demanding frequent use, the stored quantity usually has a large volume. The present invention is for a method of use of a uniquely folded photoconductor and a compact system for storing and dispensing large amounts of this photoconductor.